Her dad was mayor, and from the time she was able to write she helped keep records of favors asked and granted in the neighborhood -- important stuff for "little people", like "Help my brother get a permit for that gas station he wants to build" from back in the day when a gas station was a family business. And when it came time to call the favors in, she learned how to round up the worker bees and the votes. She knew the job from the ground up -- it was her family's business.
I don't remember anything about her being an "heiress": her neighborhood in Little Italy was working class and Catholic -- and Democratic. She married well and ended up wealthy. She raised her 5 kids in California, and all the while she was politicking behind the scenes for and with Democrats, not running for office, not in front of a camera. She became very well known in California political circles as a woman who could get important things done.
When her children were grown, she ran for office herself. She had support from the party because she had supported the party -- she had support from people because she had supported them.
Nancy Pelosi is no Arianna Huffington. Nancy is a Democratic politician to her bones, and I mean that in a way that we should all be proud of. She's my hero.
Hekate
http://www.notablebiographies.com/news/Ow-Sh/Pelosi-Nancy.html>snip< Pelosi was born Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro on March 26, 1940, in Baltimore. She was the last of six children, and the first daughter. The family lived on Albemarle Street in Little Italy. Their neighborhood was a loyal Democratic Party stronghold in Maryland politics. Little Italy was a working class and largely Roman Catholic neighborhood, located near the city's main harbor. The local church, St. Leo's, and the nearby Democratic Party office were the centers of social and economic life for Italian-American families. >snip<
Pelosi earned her degree from Trinity in 1962, and then served as a congressional intern for a Maryland senator. She thought about law school, but followed the more traditional path for a young woman of her era, that of marriage. Her husband, Paul Pelosi, was a recent Georgetown University graduate and a native of San Francisco. The couple settled in the New York City area, where Pelosi' new husband worked as a banker. She began raising a family, and was the mother of five by 1969, the same year the family moved across the country to San Francisco.
Pelosi was a homemaker for a number of years. ... No matter how busy she was at home, Pelosi always volunteered for the Democratic party during election campaigns. In 1976 she worked for the presidential campaign of California's popular governor, Jerry Brown (1938–). Because of her political connections back in Maryland, she was asked to organize a "Brown for President" campaign there. Brown went on to win an unexpected primary victory in Maryland, thanks to Pelosi. Later that year he lost the Democratic Party's presidential nomination to Georgia's governor, Jimmy Carter (1947–).
The experience boosted Pelosi's reputation as a behind-the-scenes dynamo. In 1977 she became chair for the northern section of the California Democratic Party, and four years later became the chair for the entire state. She later served in a national party post as the finance chair for the 1986 congressional elections. Known for her top skills in recruiting candidates and getting them elected, Pelosi had never considered running for office herself. That changed when one of her longtime political allies was diagnosed with cancer and suggested that Pelosi run for the seat in the coming special election. It was not a local or state office—it was for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. >snip<
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